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American Documentary Filmmaker Bruce Sinofsky Dies at 58

By Tom White


Jamie McCarthy / Wireimage

Bruce Sinofsky, who with Joe Berlinger made the celebrated Paradise Lost trilogy along with Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and Brother's Keeper, passed away this morning after a longtime struggle with diabetes. He was 58 years old. 

Joe Berlinger contacted us with the news via email, and offered the following tribute:

"Bruce encouraged both of us to throw caution into the wind to start capturing what would become Brother’s Keeper in 1991 with no money in our pockets, in the pre-video 16mm age of documentary-making, when making a no-budget film took a little more ingenuity to get in the can. His unique combination of courage and empathy made that possible, as well as everything that came after for us. The extraordinary adventures we had on the road and the deeply stimulating experiences we had in the editing room were life-changing for all of us who knew him thanks to his wisdom and fervor to change the world. Bruce’s humanity is on every frame of the films that he leaves behind, and words can’t express how graced I feel my life has been by having the extraordinary opportunity of being able to say we were partners and, more importantly, best friends."